They would ask me what actors I saw in the roles. I would tell them, and they’d say “Oh that’s interesting.” And that would be the end of it.
--Elmore Leonard, in 2000, on the extent of his input for Hollywood's adaptation of his novels

Sunday, August 26, 2012

Cyn Balog's "Touched"

Cyn Balog is the author of the young adult paranormal novels Fairy Tale, Sleepless, Starstruck, Touched, and Dead River. She lives outside Allentown, Pennsylvania with her husband and daughters.

Here she shares some suggestions for casting the leads in an adaptation of Touched:

I know of authors who cut out pictures of famous actors and actresses so they can better understand what their characters look like. I'm not one of those people, as I've slowly come to learn that readers care less about the color of one's hair and eyes than what makes a character tick. In selecting characters for my movie, I'd love to find characters who are actually young, since the two main characters are 16 and 17. The viewpoint character, Nick, has led a very sheltered life, so there is a lot of innocence there. I see him looking like the young actor David Lambert. The main female character, Taryn, who has a little more worldly experience, would be Chloë Grace Moretz. Neither are household names yet, but they're young, give them time!

Nick's mother would be Zooey Deschanel. The expression she wore during all of The Happening is the exact expression I'd imagined Nick's immature, bed-ridden, guilt-ridden mother would have. And Frances McDormand would make a great grandmother-- she's caring, but fair, and not overly emotional.

“Compared to a novel, a film is like an economy pizza where there are no olives, no ham, no anchovies, no mushrooms, and all you’ve got is the dough.”
--Louis de Bernières, author of Captain Corelli’s Mandolin